Biotech Firm Pulls Pioneering Gene Therapy Due to No Demand

April 20, 2017

(Reuters) – The biotech company behind the Western world’s first gene therapy and the most expensive prescription medicine in history is giving up on the product because of lack of demand.Only one patient has been treated commercially since the drug was first approved in Europe nearly five years ago, a spokeswoman for Dutch-based UniQure said on Thursday.UniQure went into the record books when its gene therapy Glybera was approved by European regulators for an ultra-rare blood disorder in 2012, and the drug was finally launched two years later with a price tag of around $1 million per treatment.